


Homeward Bound

by somebodysmuse



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:50:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6805294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebodysmuse/pseuds/somebodysmuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dipper and Mabel Pines are graduating. Beneath their uncertainty and nerves, they've both managed to be disappointed about their great uncles not attending their ceremony. Or so they think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homeward Bound

Mabel took a deep breath and stared down at her waffles.

"Are you nervous?" Her brother asked, his eyes narrowed.

"Yes, these waffles are very intimidating." She answered dryly. "Yeah, I'm nervous." 

"It's just graduation. All we have to do is walk across the stage." Dipper reminded her, adding cream to his coffee. "As long as you don't fall, you'll be fine."

Mabel rolled her eyes. "I'm not nervous about falling."

"In that case, syrup race?" He asked, handing her a bottle.

She rolled her eyes again and pushed herself away from the table. "You don't understand anything."

"Mabel, come on, don't leave. I was just kidding. Sit back down." 

Mabel sat back down.

"I know you're nervous, I am too." Dipper said. "I mean, it's graduation. It's the supposed end of our childhood." 

"Can we avoid using that word?" She requested, playing with a snag on the hem of her baby tee. 

"Which one? Graduation? End? Childhood?"

"All of them." She said with a sad smile.

"It's not really the end of anything. I mean, it's just high school. It's not like it was that great."

"Speak for yourself. I was head cheerleader." 

"And president of just about every club, I know. But today is supposed to be fun. We can relive our pasts when we're thirty."

Mabel laughed. "Alright, alright, fair enough. I just...I think I wish everyone was here."

Dipper's smile fell. "Yeah, I know. I wish they were here, too."

"We haven't seen them since Christmas." 

"I know, I know. But you know the Stans. They love hunting monsters." 

"More than they love seeing us move on to the next stage of our lives?" 

Dipper sighed. "I don't know, Mabel. But we'll sent them pictures and call them tonight, and it'll be great. Right?"

Mabel echoed her brother's sigh and put on a brave smile.

"Right. As long as neither of us fall off the stage."

OoO

"Are you sure you know where we're going? I think we missed our turn-"

"Look, do you want to drive? I told you, I know how to get there." 

Stanford Pines rolled his eyes and checked his watch. "The ceremony starts in ten minutes. If we're late-"

"We won't be late." Stanley Pines interrupted. "Would I let us be late to something like this?"

"Well, no." Ford conceded. "I still think we should have let them know that we're attending."

"I told you that kids like surprises." 

"Dipper and Mabel aren't kids anymore, they're almost legally adults." 

Stan looked at the pictures on his dashboard (his niece and nephew's senior pictures) and sighed.

"I know, I know. But would you rather stay on the boat while they graduate?"

"You know perfectly well that I wouldn't miss this for the world." 

"Exactly. Here we are, I told you I knew the way." Stan told his brother smugly as they pulled into the parking lot of Piedmont's high school (home of the Fighting Thunderbolts!).

"With two whole minutes to spare." Ford said dryly. "Let's go get seats. You shouldn't be standing through a whole ceremony, not at your age."

OoO

Dipper nervously tapped his fingers on his knee. He glanced around the gym, at his fellow classmates, at his parents sitting on the other end of the gym. 

"I have to go." Mabel whispered. "Miss Granger needs us to get in places."

Surely enough, Miss Granger, the terminally nervous choir instructor was motioning towards the students, a signal for the choir to come to the front.

"Sing pretty." Dipper told Mabel as she walked past him. Her smile would have been much more real if she had known that her two great uncles were in the same room, watching her take her place with her fellow altos.

"Did our choir perform at your graduation?" Stan asked Ford.

"Our school couldn't afford a choir program." Ford reminded him. "Mabel would have hated it."

They both fell silent as the music began.

In the quiet misty morning,  
When the moon has gone to bed,  
When the sparrows stop their singing,  
And the sky is clear and red,

When the summer ceased its gleaming,  
When the corn is past its prime,  
When adventure's lost its meaning,  
I'll be homeward bound in time.

Ford glanced into the sea of students, all sitting in their royal blue graduation gowns and caps. Next to Mabel's empty seat, he found his great nephew. His heart ached with both sadness and pride, remembering his feelings towards the two children, who were now hardly children, when he stepped out of the portal. He remembered how his heart had lifted when Stan had told him that he had a niece and nephew. He remembered how he had put them both in danger almost immediately after his arrival, how they had fought alongside him devoutly, how they hadn't resented him for anything that he had done. He felt tears in his eyes as the realization hit; Dipper and Mabel, the twin suns around which his planet orbited, were graduating, moving on from their childhoods.

Bind me not to the pasture,  
Chain me not to the plow,  
Set me free to find my calling,  
And I'll return to you somehow.

If you find it’s me you’re missing,  
If you’re hoping I’ll return,  
To your thoughts I’ll soon be list’ning,  
In the road I’ll stop and turn.  
Then the wind will set me racing  
As my journey nears its end,  
And the path I’ll be retracing  
When I’m homeward bound again.

Stan took a deep breath to steady himself. He would not cry in a high school gymnasium of all places. It didn't matter that the two best parts of his existence were taking one of the biggest steps of their lives...

Now he was crying for countless reasons. His niece and nephew were growing up, they weren't, like Ford said, children any longer. They were going off to college, they were going to get jobs and start families of their own. Of course, that wasn't what he was crying over. These were tears of pride, and joy. Tears for his pride and joy.

Bind me not to the pasture,  
Chain me not to the plow,  
Set me free to find my calling,  
And I'll return to you somehow.

Mabel was sure that her eyes were playing tricks on her. There was no way, no way that they had actually shown up...

But there was something about seeing those two in the audience that made her hope.

Bind me not to the pasture,  
Chain me not to the plow,  
Set me free to find my calling,  
And I'll return to you somehow.

Mabel listened to the applause swell and eventually fade as she took her seat again.

"You sounded good." Dipper whispered as she sat back down.

"Thanks."

"Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I have seen a ghost. And monsters and wax figures that can walk and talk-"

"Mabel, come on."

"It's nothing." She said almost convincingly. Dipper was still skeptical, but didn't press the subject. It wasn't until he was awaiting his diploma, waiting to walk across the stage, that he realized what was bothering his sister. He was sure, as he looked out at the crowd of parents, family members, and friends, that he saw his two great uncles sitting in the bleachers...

"Julie Anne Pembridge..."

"Mabel," Dipper whispered to his sister, who was standing behind him. "Do those two look like Grunkle Stan and Ford to you?"

"You see them, too?" Mabel asked, her eyes wide.

"...Pines?"

He felt Mabel push him forward. He hastily accepted his diploma and handshake and left the stage.

"Mabel Beatrice Pines,"

Mabel collected her diploma and words of congratulations.

"Do you think it's them?" Dipper asked as she left the stage. She shrugged.

"I hope it is." She said. 

OoO

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present the graduating class of 2017!"

What seemed like hundreds of blue graduation caps flew upwards. Graduates ran to greet crying parents and laughing classmates.

"We did it!" Mabel said, hugging her brother.

"We should probably find mom and dad," Dipper said, returning her embrace. "I think they were sitting-"

"There're my graduates!"

The two shared a disbelieving glance before turning around.

"Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Ford!" Mabel cried, running into Stan's opened arms.

A few people turned around and glanced at a sixty-year-old man picking up his seventeen-year-old niece and spinning her around as if she were weightless, but quickly turned away, commenting with nothing but smiles.

"I'm so proud of you." Ford said, hugging his nephew.

"Why didn't you tell us you were coming?" He asked.

"My boy, I assure you, it wasn't my idea."

"Surprise!" Stan said, pulling his nephew into an embrace.

"I can't believe you're both here!" Mabel said, wrapping her arms around Ford's neck. "Were you here for the whole thing?"

Ford kissed his niece's forehead. "Your school has an excellent choir." He said.

The four of them laughed, remembering the sweet and sad lyrics of the choir's number, and realizing that this, with each other, was home.

And regardless of what their respective futures held, something would always bring them home again.

**Author's Note:**

> I should probably explain.
> 
> My older sister is graduating high school in about two weeks and I'm just a little nostalgic. I wrote this because I've been listening to "Homeward Bound" and because of her. Enjoy some Pines Family fluff. Please leave comments and thank you so much for reading.


End file.
